Neurosurgery Blog

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It was six years ago that we treated our first patient using venous sinus stenting – an innovative procedure that widens a narrowed vein inside the brain. She was a delightful young woman who had been diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri and was losing vision due to high intracranial pressure. After the venous sinus stenting, the patient recovered her vision completely and all the other symptoms of increased intracranial pressure were also resolved. She has been doing very well ever since.

How do you feel? I can’t tell you how many people have asked me that recently, now that we have published the culmination of years and years of work. Embodied in the results of my Phase I clinical trial are multiple grants, kind donations, unending lab projects, thousands of emails, meeting presentations, many sleepless nights, and so much time away from my own family and two young boys. I’m not sure how to answer: I’m equal parts overjoyed, proud, exhausted – and overwhelmed by the thought my quest is not finished.

By Athos Patsalides, MDAssociate Professor of Radiology in Neurological Surgery

Vascular specialists, who work with patients experiencing conditions and disorders of the blood vessels, often talk of the “Lazarus effect,” a phenomenon in which a patient revives after coming to the brink of death, as happens in stroke or heart failure. Until recently I’d never witnessed it personally. Then, a few months ago, I treated a patient whose blood flow in the left half of the brain was completely blocked and who was in some sense of the word dead (or at least perilously close to it) when I saw him suddenly come back – at my hands.

One of the most exciting things in neurosurgery – in fact, in medicine in general – is discovering a genuinely different approach to treating a condition. It’s extremely gratifying to find a better way to treat your patients, especially when it means sparing them open surgery and offering a minimally invasive alternative. When that finding also happens to completely upend traditional thinking about a common condition, it’s quite remarkable indeed.

It is hard to explain when my passion for Africa was born. I trained as a neurosurgeon at a beautiful hospital in Barcelona, where the standards of “western” medicine is upheld and everything was always available for my patients. During my training, I had the eye-opening opportunity to collaborate with several projects on improving health care in Africa. Initially I experienced culture shock; however, after learning to embrace a new reality, I began to genuinely relate to the local people. I felt the need to make personal compromises and to seriously get involved.

I fell in love with science when I was a teenager, thanks to a wonderful teacher I had in high school. She taught genetics, chemistry, and astronomy, and she recognized something in me that she encouraged me to pursue. Up until then I thought I would have a career in business, but thanks to her I changed my mind and chose a career in science instead.

As anyone who’s ever been a parent (or teacher, or pediatrician, or coach) can tell you, children are not just little adults – they are fundamentally different creatures in terms of emotional maturity and mental development. As any doctor can tell you, children are also very different from adults when it comes to risk factors, behavioral influences, and healing.